Aerospace vehicles, such as spacecraft, including satellites and other space vehicles, orbit the earth performing a multitude of different functions and operations, such as links in telecommunications systems, photographing selected geographical areas, sensing or measuring different conditions on the earth, and monitoring weather patterns and conditions, to name a few. The attitude of these spacecraft or orientation relative to some reference, such as the earth, sun, etc., is critical to the proper performance of these spacecraft. The stability and accuracy of a satellite rotating about a given axis is a concern in many known aerospace applications. For example, some known spacecraft, such as geosynchronous communication satellites, spin about a geometric axis during transfer orbit. The performance of spin axis control directly impacts procedures such as attitude determination, thermal control, propellant management, fuel-efficient velocity increment maneuvers, command and telemetry linkage and solar power collection. While operating a spacecraft with attitude only measurements (e.g. from a star tracker) during transfer orbit, the ability of a closed-loop control system on board the spacecraft to regulate the cone angle is limited by a priori knowledge of the spacecraft's moments of inertia. The system relies upon ground-based off-line inertia estimates computed based on painstaking and time consuming modeling. These ground-based estimates of inertia, especially products of inertia, typically have errors that can result as cone angle errors. Such errors can also adversely effect orientation or pointing accuracy of the satellite, apogee thruster inefficiency, increased operation of reaction wheels or other momentum conserving actuators resulting in increased power usage and thermal loads as well as other adverse effects.